My dreams breed insanity.

[dean]

Ouch.

My head really hurts at the moment.

Ok here's the thing: I have been researching two essays at the moment, one is on video game theories, the other is Vampire movies and vampire traditions; just a bunch of Postmodern/intertextual BS.  This actually requires me to watch as many vampire movies as I can in a week [fun to be had by me!]

But this, and quite a lack of sleep, has resulted in some really creepy, quite odd dreams lately.  

I have found myself dreaming about video game arcades and spooky Vampire-related folklore.  Something like the scene in Coppola's Dracula at the cinematograph, except with more voodoo, and instead of only movies, they have a bunch of arcade games.  

I'll walk around this freak show of games and relics, and ghoulish statues and so on and then enter a room with a projector which is playing a Vampire-like video clip.  The audience flocks around this screen, hypnotised by the images they see.  The images on screen grow more indistinct, hard to make out, just a blur really, but the only thing you notice is the slow scream that is emanating from this clip and seems to come alive in the room.

The clip stops, but the scream continues, then slowly fades out.  The crowd seem like a cult, moving about in a trancelike state, and then I walk out and leave.

Cue me, waking up, and feeling quite odd and empowered.


I have thus decided I have truly gone insane.

But as the last remnants of my sanity escape from me, I ask you all the question: is it possible for movies to drive you crazy, and do you find that after a particularly intense movie, that your dreams become infused with that particular movie?



Dean

[BeyondTheGrave]

yes a movie can be in your dreams. i remember when i saw "Aliens" i had dreams that i was a colonial marine fighting the aliens at thier hive. it was really intense. but unlike the movie when i ran out of ammo i started to fight them hand to hand cause well u cant die in your dreams and i just kept going till i woke up. i still remember in the background i could hear hicks say "marines we are leaving".

"Dont be a fool for ur tool"

[ulthar]

rich andrini wrote:

> u cant die in your dreams

Who says?  I've dreamed my own death before, even including my own autopsy.

[AndyC]

I don't know if it's all the stormy weather we've had up here, or recently viewing The Day After Tomorrow, but I've been dreaming about tornadoes a lot lately. And if you want to know what several years in journalism can do to you, these were not unpleasant dreams.

Just last night, I dreamed I was with my family at some kind of small-town rural Ontario festival when, at some point after a big parade with marching bands (my wife and I recently watched The Music Man) some black clouds started swirling overhead and somebody (I think it was my mom) said "there's an F4 for you." The tornado touches down on the far side of town right in front of me, and I think "crap, my camera is in the van across town." So, as everybody else is running away from the tornado, I'm running right at it. I pass my brother, who tells me I'm nuts. I get to the van, figure out which lens to use, while the tornado is demolishing everything on the next block and getting closer. I have a brief thought of whether I'm safer inside the van or out, but since the thing is practically towering over me, I need to get out for a good shot. Of course, I have to be quick and careful, so as not to get rain on the lens. I get out of the van, turn to shoot...

...and wake up to sunshine and chirping birds. Damn!

It was almost as disappointing as one of those dreams you have as a teenager, when you wake up just as you're about to get laid.

Truth is, I did actually get pictures of a funnel cloud at the local fair a couple of summers ago. It's hanging over the heads of people in the bleachers who have no idea what's behind them (albeit a few miles away). Not the best quality, because it was getting dark and I had come prepared to shoot a tractor pull, not weather, but it made the front page. The funnel did seem to be descending toward the ground rather quickly, and I ran out to the parking lot where I could get a clearer shot if it touched down, but it disappeared more quickly than it arrived. All this took place over a few minutes. I've been tempted to blow the pictures up for my wall, but I'm embarassed at the quality of the photography.

Very different from my dream, but there are some striking parallels.

[ulthar]

AndyC wrote:

> Truth is, I did actually get pictures of a funnel cloud at the
> local fair a couple of summers ago. It's hanging over the heads
> of people in the bleachers who have no idea what's behind them
> (albeit a few miles away). Not the best quality, because it was
> getting dark and I had come prepared to shoot a tractor pull,
> not weather, but it made the front page. The funnel did seem to
> be descending toward the ground rather quickly, and I ran out
> to the parking lot where I could get a clearer shot if it
> touched down, but it disappeared more quickly than it arrived.
> All this took place over a few minutes. I've been tempted to
> blow the pictures up for my wall, but I'm embarassed at the
> quality of the photography.
>

That's very cool.  There's a Camera World (I think) in Charlotte, NC that has a whole sequence of shots of a tornado forming, touching down and dissipating over a small lake.  Some guy shot the sequence off his back deck, and the whole sequence covers about one minute.  It is really, really an awesome set of pictures.

Don't worry about the low quality...any shots of tornadoes are hard to get, so any pictures of them are good.

[AndyC]

I think I might dig out those negatives and take a look. They're somewhere in a stack of binders at work. If I get any printed, I'll post one or two.

[BeyondTheGrave]

ulthar wrote:

> rich andrini wrote:
>
> > u cant die in your dreams
>
> Who says?  I've dreamed my own death before, even including my
> own autopsy.
>

i remember i dont know were i got it from that if you fall or get killed in your dreams and die well you cant wake up cause your really dead. i might have got it  from nightmare on elm street but i am not sure.

[ulthar]

rich andrini wrote:

>
> i remember i dont know were i got it from that if you fall or
> get killed in your dreams and die well you cant wake up cause
> your really dead. i might have got it  from nightmare on elm
> street but i am not sure.

I've heard this numerous times from a variety of sources, but the basic common sense question is:  How would you know what a dead person was dreaming before they died?

It's a myth, as I can attest from my own experience.  Unless I am really 'dead' now and have been for many years, al la "Jacob's Ladder."